Why Do We Like Bear?

This season of Celebrity Big Brother has had most of the turmoils and controversies we see every year. There’s been ‘scenes of a sexual nature’, ‘nudity’, ‘aggressive confrontations’ and ‘offensive language’, all of which some viewers have found distressing. Every time a new season of Big Brother begins, I am always adamant I won’t watch it, but every time I succumb, and for the duration of the programme I am a slave to my biggest weakness – I am entirely addicted. This time, however, I am at the mercy of something larger, something I am far more ashamed of my affection for. Stephen Bear.

Bear has been subject of a great deal of anger from other housemates and the viewing public. I, in fact, was initially among them. What bothered me the most was the apparent laddish misogyny (which does still annoy me, but more on this later) and his disregard for the other housemates’ feelings. But as time has gone on, I have developed a deep affection for the charismatic rogue, and he is now my absolute favourite, above even sweet, well-intentioned Ricky. I have come to think that he really isn’t a bad person, and that the persona he sometimes adopts is in order to ‘play the game’. Granted, he may at times go a bit far, but at least he’s genuine – at times even kind – and he calls it like he sees it, often being perceptive and intelligent in his observations.

Alas, there is a major flaw in my evaluations: Lillie, the girlfriend he left behind and quite despicably betrayed on national television. This really (aside from the laddish misogyny I mentioned earlier) is my biggest issue with Bear, and the only redeeming factor is his clearly genuine upset and remorse. (However, at the time of writing, Bear’s elder brother has just spoken about the incident, claiming Bear tried to break up the relationship before entering into the house, and Lillie had plotted the whole thing. Lillie is yet to respond to the claims.) It really shouldn’t mean all that much, but it would have taken someone much stronger than me to look at his poor sad eyes in the diary room and not feel utter sympathy. Admittedly this does make me weak, and I still feel awful for his poor ex-girlfriend, but I can’t say I believe he acted to deliberately hurt her, as ultimately careless and foolish his actions were. This is also what I attribute the misogyny to – the fact he simply doesn’t know better – and I think he could really do with a good talking to about that. But he doesn’t mean much by it – apart from a partly unintentional lack of respect, there isn’t any of the dangerous hatred some of the more vehement and aware sexists feel. Not to excuse him, of course; it is still terrible and reprehensible, but I think it’s also fixable and not too atrocious to be something you base your entire opinion on.

In conclusion, for all his faults, there is something deeply likeable to Bear; he has been genuinely really funny at times and his loyalty to Chloe is admirable (anyone who disagrees that the nail parlour he set up wasn’t lovely is wrong), and there is also a side we have seen more of in the past two days since the incident with Lillie being allowed into the house and Heavy D being evicted. Or maybe it’s not so much that that side of him is likeable but actually that I feel sorry for him. Either way, I’m starting to wish the other housemates would show a little more understanding – it would be horrible for any human being to be left as isolated as he has been, and he’s clearly going through some emotional turmoil, which will no doubt worsen with the departure of his two allies Lewis and James, even if that was the path he initially chose. For all the showmanship there seems to be something within him that is good and understandable – in fact, when I watched ten minutes of Ex On The Beach to see what he was like, you could tell he didn’t quite fit in. It was like he could do better than it, which wouldn’t take much to be frank – it’s actually quite frightening and I refuse to believe that’s the way any of those people act in real life, or at least I hope not. Not to have a go, but people that do reality TV seem to have a real knack for how it works, and I suppose you have to admire that even if it does spread negative attitudes. But anyway, that’s for another day. He’s certainly doing something right, as he hasn’t left yet, and surviving so many evictions is surely a signal he will at least make it to the final, touch wood.